#oh you're only giving me human and elf options?

[eruscreaminginthedistance]

Despite my disappointment over the lack of choice and variation in character creation, Avowed does have one advantage:

I can easily start crafting my character now, without getting choice paralysis or having to see how a certain class/subclass will play before committing.

It definitely makes decision-making so much easier

[secretwhumplair]

Prologue: Mirai and the serpent king

494 words | Mirai and the serpent king

Content | Slavery, swearing, dehumanisation, implied past and future noncon, mention of cannibalism

Notes | I don't actually have much of a plot to this one. It'll come to me or it won't. I have (as you can see) decided to post all non-explicit parts here!

Mirai's fate is discussed by his current owners, a band of upstanding traders. All the options are bad but some are worse than others.

Taglist | @yet-another-heathen

"It was a goddamn mistake. Who the fuck is going to buy an elf that can't sing?"

"He's gorgeous though."

"Whatever. That doesn't make up for it. You've seen how folks try to lowball on him as soon as they hear his voice."

"Yes, and I think we've been right not to sell him at those rates! If it were a human, people wouldn't think twice about his voice as long as he knows how to shut up."

"Which he does."

"Yes, yes, you're very clever and all, now can you pull a buyer out of your hat who'll see it that way too?"

"There's still the serpent king down south."

Silence. Only the soft crackling of the fireplace could be heard, its warmth barely reaching where the slaves lay chained to the cart like so many dogs.

Mirai knew he should try to sleep, like the others; they would travel on towards the next market tomorrow, another long march for the slaves while the slavers could take turns riding on their mules, or resting in the cart carrying their other supplies. But he couldn't, not when his fate was being discussed so callously.

One of the slaver laughed out loud. "The serpent king! You're volunteering to travel through his domain, then?"

"They say he pays good money for pretty slaves to add to his harem. Really good."

"True, and he's practically a beast. I bet he doesn't even care for singing."

"Oh, great! Two volunteers to be strangled and eaten in the goddamn jungle!"

"Snakes can't be trusted. And anyway…"

"Oh, come on! What do you care what he does with the little elf as long as you get paid?"

"She's right! You know what, yes, actually. I'm volunteering to take the elf down there. 's long as I get half the money."

Incredulous laughter scattered into the night.

"We'll be in and out, bringing the king exactly what he wants. But given you guys are too chicken to do it, we should get hazard pay, no? Fifty percent for those who go, I say, and the rest for the company."

There was some more back and forth, but what mattered was that Mirai's fate was sealed. The stars up in the cold sky above blurred in his vision when this new terror sunk into his bones.

Mirai didn't know much about snake people - no one did, really, they were a secretive folk keeping to themselves. But there were stories, the sort of stories giving root to the slavers' fear: that they were cruel animals. That they ate other sentient races, and sometimes each other. That they delighted in the suffering of those weaker than them.

Of course, he had met men, elves, and plenty of others of whom the latter was true, too. But given all he knew, the odds of safety, of even a shred of comfort, of a kind master perhaps, were stacked against him more than ever before.

[casspurrjoybell-22]

Master - Chapter 5a

*Warning: Adult Content*  

"I don't quite understand why you're pulling me since I'm following you freely," Malcolm whines, protesting against my firm grip on his arm while I pull him away from the Elf's prying ears. "I know how to walk Linc."

"Malcolm," I say with a sigh of exhaustion which only makes him huff a little before falling into a comfortable silence.

I pull him into a forgotten room which once was an office, a room Malcolm never really used, even in the height of his fame amongst the humans. 

I shut the doors behind us and follow Malcolm into the webbed room, standing over him while he sat on a small cushion within the window seal.

"Alright, what is it?" Malcolm says, gesturing lazily for me to begin while crossing his legs.

"Diablos sent about fifty men and women to my castle, to take Kalem back," I explain and frown slightly when he barely reacts, eyes only widening a small fraction.

"Oh," he says, soundly mildly surprised.

"You're not surprised," I state and he nods. "Did you know he was coming?"

"No, I haven't spoken to Diablos in centuries," he says waving me off. "But I did expect as much to happen eventually. You took one of his slaves, his most valuable of the night in front of a sector of the community. I take it, word has spread and he is facing harsh criticism for being so vulnerable and weak. Retaliating is the only option in a position like that."

"It's hard to remember how idiotic you truly are when you actually use your brain on rare occasions such as these," I admit after listening to his explanation.

I'd never really gotten along with my own kind, didn't understand their ways of thinking but Malcolm was different because he wasn't like them. 

He didn't want what the other vampires wanted, well not in the same form that their needs took. 

It was one of the reasons he understood me better than most, that and he was annoyingly persistent in trying to become my friend for four decades straight.

"He knew they wouldn't succeed, knew he was sending his people to their deaths," Malcolm continues, ignoring my comment. "It was probably a warning if nothing else."

"There was a letter, the last one standing handed it to me before pulling his own heart out," I reveal and smile a little at the way Malcolm grimaced. "He wants me to give Kalem back and if I do not comply, he's threatening to start a war."

"Are you going to comply?" Malcolm asks, knowing damn well how even hinting at me to fall under Diablos' demands only urged me to do the complete opposite.

"Kalem isn't something to just give and take, he is a person," I grind out, using words all too similar to the ones I'd only just spoken to Kalem earlier today.

"Says the man who literally stole him away," Malcolm mumbles in response, continuing before I could argue. "I'd say the simple solution is to just give the man the fee which you owe."

"I am not going to pay for him and treat him like a slave."

"So you'd rather keep your pride than appease the fucker with what is probably spare change to you? Hmm?" Malcolm questions, standing to look me in my eyes with serious intent. "You'd rather let the boy suffer through blood and deaths for an unknown length of time, so you don't have to go against your unwavering values?"

An uncomfortable quiet falls between us as Malcolm pierces me with his gaze, showing no remorse for his words. 

I lock my jaw, letting my teeth grind together to keep me steady.

"I am not going to support these disgusting practices in any way," I grind out slowly. "I will not do that to myself or to Kalem."

Malcolm stares at me, eyes narrowing his eyes to decrypting slits before his stance loosens and he flops back onto his cushion. 

He rests his head against the peeling wall paint and crosses his legs.

"So what's the plan and my exact role in it?" Malcolm asks, defeated and utterly onboard despite his fruitless protests.

"I'm going to kill him," I say simply and Malcolm only laughs. "He won't stop until he's made an example out of me, which could never happen, so I must kill him."

"Don't make it sound like such a chore, we both know how long you've wanted to rip the bastards head from his body," Malcolm replies with a deep grin. "And how long I've wanted to watch."

‘And this is why you're my best friend.’

"Although, knowing Diablos, he's probably prepared for an attack on some sort," Malcolm offers while thinking deeply. "By the time we cut through his barricades, he'd be behind yet another."

"I need him to face me, need to draw him out of his little hiding spots," I agree, trying to remember pieces of the man I'd long broken apart from my memories.

"I'll think of something, reach out to a few contacts and make the necessary preparations," Malcolm says while letting one of his legs jump a little.

"Thank you, Malcom."

"Think of this as my form of repayment for Arias," he says hopefully, in reference to the one million he sent flying out of the fucking window.

"Think of this as a favor, you still owe me one million," I deadpan and smirk at the childish groan he releases with a disappointed thump of his foot.

"Okay, whatever. Be a pellagric," he grumbles angrily. "While I'm performing my 'favor' you bring down all his little strongholds we know about. Corner him to act out of anger rather than intelligence."

"Sounds good."

[bookwyrminspiration]

Wait. How do the elves know when animals are birthed into the world as well? Like- there's wildlife in areas that the elves could never track. So to add onto your question, how're prattles pins made?

What the fuck even makes a prattles pin?

An elf is technically an animal right? Or do they not count because of intelligent species?

Are there human prattles pins?

Quil come back you can't just ask a question and give me more questions. /lh /t

Nonsie I have asked these exact questions before!! Tumblr's tagging system is such that I actually used google to find it, but here's the post! The whole prattle pin thing is like Shannon went "hey here's this cool bit of elven culture" and we all went how???

For example, the alicorns were once a thriving species, but the elves only ever found one. Greyfell stumbled into their lives, one of the last of their species. One of two we've seen in the wild. Both of them existed entirely without the elves awareness!! So whose to say there aren't more? Whose to say there aren't other entirely undiscovered species? Whose to say there aren't species that went extinct before the elves could save them?

And how are the pins made!! Calla said that she had a friend--hang on let me find the quote actually. It's in Neverseen when they first get to the neverseen hideout and Calla comes to give Sophie her box thing with the necklace. "i have a friend who works at the Prattle's bakery, and I'd heard that a baby moonlark hatched recently. I asked her to save me the box with the new pin" (pg 117, paperback). So there's a bakery where prattles are made, staffed apparently by gnomes. Is this like an industrial bakery? Because elves consume a lot of prattles pins.

And apparently the odds of getting rare pins is skewed because you can request certain boxes be set aside for you. Which is very unfair to the rest of the population but I don't even think they now it's happening. Because I think Sophie's the only person whose been communicated with using the pins (the black swan used them in book one). Didn't they legit give her an alicorn pin once...like my dude that is so unfair to everyone else and also how?? the fuck??? did they get it??

So the candy is made in the bakery, but who knows where the pins come from!! Maybe it's a job given to the working class, and the materials are gathered by the dwarves. Or maybe technopaths have something to do with it, but it doesn't seem techy enough for them.

Also also!! I don't think there are elf pins because they don't consider themselves animals, but someone asked that same question with the human thing!! let me see if I can find it. Okay here it is!! You can look through the notes to see other comments on that. I think realistically humans being an option for prattles pins would be a nightmare. How would they keep track of the population? the births and deaths and how many there are. it's be super super super hard to get any other pin if it was just humans. Like oh yeah just 89 pins out of the several billion common animals and humans are this other species. Sorry to all elves trying to collect pins you're just gonna end up collecting humans.

"Quil come back you can't just ask a question and give me more questions" haha!! except I can! now you get to experience what you all do to me sometimes!! /t people will say something and 700 words later I still have questions.

but also I will come back because I love to talk and can't resist answering questions. and i agree with you entirely I'm sparking more and more questions for myself. Every post I make just digs deeper into the technicalities of the series and at this point I'm just. I'm a permanent fixture here in the fandom.

sometimes I just want to sit down with shannon and ask her a million very specific worldbuilding questions that will have no impact on the actual story. Like garbage collection? how did the elves save all the dinosaurs? does money have any value? why aren't the elves birthdays in the registry files? have elves ever tasted spice? are elves born with teeth or are they unnecessary to speak their language?

prattles pins were so clearly meant to be this fun detail of the world to give the elves culture and to help introduce sophie to their world and we all went what the fuck is this?? sorry shannon. but also if you didn't want us to ask questions maybe you should've made it make sense